The art of Trump’s squeals

"Donald Trump thinks we should fire you,” said a senior editor at Fortune Magazine.

"Donald Trump thinks we should fire you," said a senior editor at Fortune Magazine. "I'm sure he does," I replied, smiling. "No, seriously," said my colleague, who wasn't smiling. "We got a letter from him."

It was 1988, and my critical review of the real-estate mogul's first book had just turned me into one of Trump's first targets. I was Fortune's PR director and, because of my familiarity with promotions, had gotten the assignment to review the book for the magazine.

Within minutes of that hallway conversation, I was looking at the letter. Embossed with The Trump Organization's gold logo at the top, it had been signed at the bottom with a thick pen in big, sharply drawn letters: "Donald J. Trump."

I hadn't much liked "The Art of the Deal," the first book in what would become the eight-volume body of Trumpian literature. OK, I really, really didn't like it.

"It will not be of much use in business schools or to anyone with a real job." I wrote in Fortune. "What it delivers is everything you always suspected about the makeup of Donald Trump: the pomposity, the shallowness and above all, the need for more money, more toys and more attention."

This opinion, it will come as no surprise, did not sit well with The Donald. His angry response, which would be tweeted today but in those simpler times had arrived in the U.S. mail, railed at the piece's "stupidity" and pouted that I had revealed an "obvious and deep-seated prejudice" against him. There was a veiled suggestion that I be sacked for incompetence: "Based on the skimpy size (only 98 pages) of your Jan. 4 issue, I would suggest that Fortune is sorely in need of a new public relations director."

It was unclear how I could be prejudiced against someone with whom I had never had professional or personal dealings (or even met). But no matter. It was a window into the obvious and deep-seated insecurity of Trump, and Fortune printed it in its Feb. 15 issue.

And that, we all thought, was that.

But no. A year later, I found myself in the office of Marshall Loeb, managing editor of Fortune. He was holding in his hand a familiar piece of golden stationery with the signature I could see across the room.

"Donald Trump says you are not to review his books in this magazine again," Marshall said.

Ostensibly, the subject of this new letter was the real-estate mogul's delight over a Fortune spread about him. But then Trump let loose: "Fortune has come a long way since it gave me the single worst review of a book in publishing history. Perhaps I will do better the next time around — especially with a different reviewer."

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Donald Trump's public feuds

Marshall tapped the letter and said: "I know just what he's up to here. He's working the ref." And then Marshall's manner became more resolute. "If you weren't going to be reviewing his next book, you are now."

In 1990, I did indeed review Trump's second book. "Surviving at The Top" was published at a point in time, much like now, when Trump's luck seemed to have run out. His Plaza Hotel, his casinos and the Trump Shuttle were all in deep trouble.

In the wake of Iowa, Trump's tone in "Surviving" is instructive. Everything is fine, just fine, he said, if only the media would leave him alone. He then unloaded on just about everyone who had ever voiced criticism of him.

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My review pronounced him "The Ego That Will Not Die." This time there came no letter from Trump Tower.

It's now 2016, and what is striking to me about Donald Trump is how little his character has changed over the span of three decades. Unlike creatures in the Amazon rain forest and African savannas, he has not shown any sign of evolving a tougher hide; he today possesses the same cellophane-thin skin of 30 years ago

"So vicious and personal in nature that I actually had to laugh"

The Ego That Will Not Die is not about to let Iowa stand. George Patton's speech to the Third Army, memorably re-enacted as the opening of the George C. Scott movie, is undoubtedly playing in Trump's head: "When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooters, big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser."

And there is something else that will make Donald run and run. In all the years that I've been a Trump watcher, one succinct assessment has stood out for me. The phrasemaker is not known — not to Google, anyway — but the phrase is this: "Publicity is Donald Trump's cocaine."

Right now, The Donald has the biggest pile of blow of his life in front of him. He will never walk away from it.